Poverty . Thats our show tonight. And now, john stossel. In this rich country lots of people are poor. So what should we do about that . Spread the wealth, thats the democrats plan. Some americans are plenty rich. We can just tax more and spend the money on the poor. Fifty years ago president johnson said america will end poverty by doing that. This Administration Today here and now declares unconditional war on poverty in america. [applauding] he expanded Social Security to include more people. Expanded the food stamp program. Created the job core and more. And look how its reduced poverty. In the first sten years of the war on poverty, the poverty rate dropped from 17 percent to 12 percent. Thats great success. But wait a second. Look at the years right before the war on poverty began. Americans were already lifting themselves out of poverty without the welfare programs. And now, look at this graph that shows whats happened since the war began, after five, ten years of improvement, americans stopped making progress. The poverty rate has gone up and down. What happened . Earlier i asked congressman paul ryan what happened. We basically decided to measure poverty based on inputs. How much money are we spending . How many people are we putting on these programs . Were basically managing poverty. And as a result were perpetuating poverty. And so many of these programs end up disinsent viesing work. They say it pays not to go to work. Youll lose more in benefits than you will in wage. Encouraging people to be dependent. Its a realistic assumption which if you lose more in benefits by taking the risk of going to work and not seeing kids, having a babysitter, the rational person says it doesnt work. Stossel congressman ryan came out with a new book it expands on the antipoverty thing he released months ago. Whats your way forward . Getting to work. Youre implying republicans cut them off and then theyll go to work. We have programs that are going unreformed. So what were saying is stop this bureaucracy onesizefitsall alphabet soup of agencies trying to dictate this. Bring resources back to communities and focus on the individuals stossel states. Give states more states rights, but most importantly focus it on getting individuals from welfare to work and do what you need to do to help deal with the individual problems so they can get from welfare to work. Stossel impose work or job requirements. How do you do that . Maybe this guy needs drug countlessing. Maybe she needs day care. Stossel and the state bureaucracy will figure this out. Break up the bureaucracy and allow them to compete whether they not have a model from welfare to work. Give families in need a choice of providers. Stossel two other points, regulator reforms. There are two forms. You have big business and established interest that will to come government that will protect them and a barrier to entry against competitors. Stossel licensing rules we cant just let them operate here. We should get rid of of that so we have a free economy and so that we dont have crony capitalism. As republicans, we need to be a pro market party not just a pro business party. Stossel tier these rules down. Tear them down. A lot of these russians hurt the poor. They take more disposable income from people. Stossel hes taken the heat for his plans. Heres jim from washington state. Paul ryan is sitting up there smiling, but his budget cuts 100 and 37 billion out of the food stamp program. They want to see like they care, but if you look at their deeds they clearly dont care about the poor. We spend trillions of dollars and we havent moved the needle. If you cut food stamps theyll starve. I beg to differ. The Obama Administration removed the work requirement for the ablebodied what were proposing and what jim is criticizing is work requirements. Reinstating the notion if youre an ablebodied person and youre receiving government assistance, taxpayers expect something in return. And we should. Such as work related activities. Everybody has a different problem and thats why were saying the federal government is sitting in washington thinking it knows how to get people out of poverty is arrogant. It doesnt work. What we want to do is empower stossel states may be incompetent. Break up the monopolies and have a competition so we can experiment ideas to focus how do you get people out of welfare, out of poverty into work. Democrats say this is governments responsibility and the best way we can do it is raise the minimum wage. This makes sense to people. I understand that how it can make intuitive sense. It will cost as many as a half a million to a million jobs. It will raise the price of labor and business will shrink the availability of jobs. When i waited on tables, i made minimum wage and it was a fantastic opportunity to learn good skills in life that made me better. By raising the minimum wage wub end up shrinking the pool of jobs that people need to get in the game in the first place. I was upset to see one of my favorite actresses pro moamght a higher wage. Im afraid im leaving for good this time children. Im only paid the federal minimum wage. See. But you have magical powers. You think that would entitle me to more than 7. 25 an hour. Thats not the version i remember. Stossel but this convinces people. It seems cruel and people say a business isnt going to hire people for an extra buck or two. The point here is not to shrink the pool of available jobs that people can get in the available work force and make a better life for themselves. We want more jobs not less of them. Snovment the governments programs stwringd the number of jobs. Whether its taxes or regulations. When you see tens of millions of people in america not having access to community and we want the government to do more damage to our economy, to make it harder for people to get jobs. Snovment the government is popularity be and it does a lot of things well. We as conservatives want to keep government limited so what its supposed to do it does well. Instead of spreading it too thin. Thank you congressman ryan. Now, lets frmple opposition. Earlier we saw jim mcder the month saying he doesnt care about the poor. Representative mcder the month. Congressman, dont both parties care about poor people, but disagree about the best way to help people. Well, paul ryan is trying very hard to be a compassionate conservative. They talk a very good game, but its by their deeds you shall know them is what the bible says. The fact is the budget he put out cuts things all over the place that were not investing in our kids. Were not investing in nasa, were not investing anywhere. All right. I assume you want to raise the minimum wage . Of course, this whole business about somehow raising the minimum wage causes a loss of jobs. Well, if thats true, why dont we drop the minimum wage altogether and work for people work for a dollar a day. If theyre willing to and thats the agreement of their employer. Wouldnt that create a lot of new jobs. Maybe somebody will be pumping your gas at the gas station. Learning how to work. Putting people to work that sounds like a good idea, but if theyre at work and they cant pay their bills and they cant see their kids. You got people with two and three jobs together trying to make it. Why not 40 bucks an hour if theres no harm. It doesnt take jobs away. You can get crazy like that. That doesnt make any sense. What makes sense is to gradual bring it up like we have that was once a dollar an hour. Now its up to 7. 25. Now, were saying bring it up to 10. 10. That would be a good start. Hollywood agrees with you. Actress kristen bell said a spoonful of minimum wage will make just a 3dollar increase can make a living wage. It makes a living wage. It makes a living wage. Just a 3dollar increase, can make a living wage. Its so sweet and reasonable so the reason tvs remy was willing to dress up as a chimney sweep. So theyll raise the prices how happy i will be, its great. Ive been replaced by a machine. Congressman, that happens, cashiers get replaced by selfscanners at the checkout counter, so on. We see the changes in the job market. But if youre not paying people a wage that they can afford to put a roof over their head and pay for their food and pay for a their transportion to get to work and have any chance to help their kids go to college and pay their medical bills, its a crime that anybody in this country as rich as us should have to have a bankruptcy and a medical illness. Its just unforgivable. I fear most americans believe with you. I talk to people in times square. At least some people said government teaches helples. Giving everybody is creating a society where its just expensive. People need things. Its okay to help, but do we need to give them free cell phones. I think anything you subsy dies youll have more of. And thats whats happened with the war on poverty . we have this church showing whats happened since it began. I dont know if you can see it there, but progress was great for five, seven years. And it stopped because we taught americans to be dependent. Your programs do that. We have shifted the cost onto people and made them more and more in debt. Their houses, their future are gone because they have financed their kids education. So everything should be free . College education, health care . You just want to spend other peoples money. Europe. We cant afford it. What do you mean we cant afford . Were trillions in debt. The french. The french are going down the tubes. But their kids are being educated and theyre competing with us in the International Markets other countries understand investment. This country understands only the bottom line of the very rich, and they are doing fabulously. Thank you congressman mcder the month for joining us. I hope you never get to spend all of our money at least as much as you want to. I hope i get to spend some of it. Audience to join this argument. You can tweet using the hashtag poverty or post on my facebook page. We want to know what you think. Coming up, some believe the best Antipoverty Program is a government policy that gives people thousands of dollars a year. Is that smart . Thats next john you want 30,000 bucks, switzerland may give its citizens that every year. Heres coverage for the promotion of the ballot measure. The proposed basic initiative arrived with a splash, and the promise of 2,000 euro a month for every swiss citizen intended to let them leave without basic financial worry. John live without financial worry what a great idea says the editor of reason. Com. No, its a terrible idea says the economist. So elizabeth, you got to convince me. Why is this a good idea. People will just waste the government and the government will say we have to say more. There are all different versions even Milton Friedman proposed Something Like this. Its not an antilibertarian book. John a plan to replace welfare state gives everyone 10,000 bucks. The welfare system we have now is so huge. It has all these different application requirements. All these agencies that are manager it. Kind of just wipe all of that out and combine everything into one system that would be more efficient. Ed, the way to get through poverty is not through handouts. The market. Historically places like hong kong, singapore, United States john we all agree on that and ill go into it later in the program. What about the really helpless people . Give them money. We should think about the best way of helping people. Number one is markets. I think we have a positive obligation to help people in need, but government is not the answer. Private associations that would do that, friendly societies, mutual aid societies, thinks like knights of columbus. John they werent that friendly. They were kind of racist in that they would help people of their own kind, but they were smarter, you dont need a hand out sometimes you need a kick in the rear. They were better they did focus on building character. Helping people on their feet rather than giving free cash handouts to people that said, hey, this is potentially going to encourage you not to work. How can we help you back on your feet . John these groups would come back after we stop the handouts. The more the government takes out of our pockets, the thats the tragedy of american compassion. John but people dont agree i agree it would be private money to do it. Elizabeth, really, you got the cocaine addict. He gets ten thousands bucks it goes right up his nose. He got kids. The politicians will say we cant let his kids starve. That happens now. You have Child Welfare come. Its not like we need to create a new Entitlement Program for someone negotiating their kids. You have to spend your benefits on food or rent or whatever. And the government chooses how you get to spend that assistance. What if you grow your own food what if you inherited a house, but you need that on money for car payments to commute to a job to take a class to improve your situation. John this is more flexible. I lived in San Francisco and they gave cash handouts to Homeless People at the beginning of each month and unfortunately a lot of them did elicit substances with those things. It didnt help people. I dont think the Homeless Population is something you can extrapolate to american citizens as a whole. By paying people, whether or not theyre working, youre giving them that extra option of not investing their future being dependent on the government. This gets rid of the disincentives. You might lose all your benefits and you have less than before because youre paying for commuting to work. Youre paying for child care. The tax incomes was supposed to get around it. One study found in indiana they gave money in the hours of work reduced count down. They did, but it was a very modest reduction. The biggest reduction was in single mothers for them it was about 130 hours total which would equal about three working weeks. And they found they werent using this to sort of layer out approximate the people taking extra time were spending more time looking for a better job. Or spending time with a newborn. For young people, they were going to school. They werent like im taking this and never improve again. They were improving their situations. John coming up to help poor people, americans give millions in foreign aid. The problem is touchdowns work. Everybody knows it. Its failed everywhere its been tried. There comes a time when we hed a certain call. When the world must come together as one. John there are 1,000 charities raising to help the poor. They give us food. They bring us shoes. They dig us we will see wells. Give now and lives will be saved. John so americans give. Give about 5 billion a week hoping to help poor people. The problem is touchdowns work. Everybody knows it. Its failed everywhere its been tried. Everybody talks about it. The old way we did development is no match for partnership. Yet the icons of charity remain the same. Icons of charity are the ngos the nongovernmental organizations that profess to help poor people. Plus governments like ours, americans spend billions of dollars of foreign aid, but it doesnt work all that Charity Money doesnt help. Thats the claim of a new movie called poverty, inc. This fall. Michael made the film. Charity money, 5 billion a week doesnt help the poor people. Obviously there are times when foreign aid may help. There can be be good aid and bad aid. John say after a hurricane, shortterm help. Right. I think the biggest problem weve used the emergency as a model. You have an earthquake, three years later people are still giving away rice and different things. Oftentimes, our help ends up crowding out local business. John we help people stay poor. We turn them into the object of our john it was one of the the poorest countries of the world and after the earthquake in 2010 they got 50 billion in aid. After they got 50 billion, they were even poorer. Why . Because aid encouraged people to be helpless. There are more ngos per capita here than in the world. Theyre trying to find ways for them to keep giving away free stuff. As if they didnt want the haitians to stand up for themselves. American also encouraged helplessness by subsidying rice farmers. America then indicatorrably gives it to poor haitians, but before all this haiti was selfsufficient in rice. When they started flooding the haitian market with subsidized rise, rice became a cheaper commodity. We are now consuming rice three times a day seven days a week. Because its practically free. Because farmers could not make a living outside area, they moved in looking for better days, and we overbuilt slums. And what is this . It actually created more poverty. John and haiti stays poor despite all this aid. One of the stories we tell is about a Company Called anursa that makes solar panels. Before the earthquake they were selling about 50 solar panels a month after the earthquake there was a huge demand, but organizations in the United States and solar panels began to ship solar panels down there for free. One of their founders told me, we went from selling 50 a month to five in six months. So our desire to help actually delayed the development of local business to help the poor. John the answer cant be to just do nothing if people are horribly poor. Were rich. People want to do something. Its not enough to do something. Were not called to just have a heart for the poor. Were supposed to have a mind for the poor. When our doing things make the situation worse, then we have to stop. A sliver of good in his movie is that finally some leaders of developed countries recognize that aid can hurt. Heres the president of rwanda. Aid leads to more aid and more aid and more aid and less independence of people receiving aid. And we heard president clinton say this isnt working. And even obama said aid isnt as good as capitalism. What youre seeing hopefully is that people are starting to recognize that the current way of thinking is broken. Lets rethink our assumptions and our beliefs about how we think about poor people and how we think about economics. John thank you michael. Were out of time. Coming up child labor. Early in the morning, children board a school bus, but theyre not headed to school theyre going to work. John going to work in north carolina. And my guest guests says good, let children work. Debate about that next. Oh, no that boys hands are bleeding. Child labor is evil. This is a video game made for a socalled educational tv channel. And what education do people get . Some obvious truths sweatshops are cruel. Workers are overworked in dangerous conditions. American companies ignore the abuses because they make money and that means child workers are victims of our whims. This is what Many Americans believe and many are taught. Therefore the answer, close the sweatshops down. Ban them in america and